Australian company Tixel, a marketplace for the buying and selling of tickets, has launched in the UK.
Tixel has appointed senior personnel to oversee the growth of partnerships and the company, as well as to work with UK and European promoters.
Former PwC consultant Matt Kaplan has been named as the head of UK and Europe. Chris Williams, who was previously in the partnerships team at Songkick, is now with Tixel in a business development role.
The new UK model will be similar to Tixel’s in the Asia Pacific region. Anyone can list a ticket for resale on Tixel and after it is verified to ensure the ticket is real, it will then be offered to a fan registered on the Tixel waitlist. The seller can also list the ticket on the event’s social media, and Tixel’s anti-tout software ensures a fair price. It caps the listing price at 10% above face value.
With festivals and live events mostly now able to take place within the UK and Europe, as well as in Ireland, Tixel has noted that the market is in need of a service that will help fans sell multiple tickets if they are unable to attend an event.
Tixel also aims to reduce fake listings, high resale pricing and spec selling, especially as demand has been so high as countries return to a sense of normality following the COVID-19 pandemic.
Chief executive of Tixel Zac Leigh said: “Real fans have long suffered at the hands of the conniving strategies devised by ticket touts and commercial resellers. They flood primary onsales, making it incredibly difficult to compete for tickets and fans are left with the only option of paying four or five times the original price as these tickets appear en massed on open market resale sites, sometimes within seconds of a sellout.”
He added: “By adopting an ethical resale approach, we effectively singled out the ability for touts to easily list and sell their tickets. Capping prices and calling fake tickets takes away their oxygen, whilst still allowing the fair trade of tickets between fans.”
A relatively new company having been in operation since 2018, Tixel has already partnered with events in the UK and Europe, including Dekmantel, Bournemouth 7s and music, skate and surfboarding festival Boardmasters.
The Cornwall event attracted over 50,000 ticket holders and boasted a fast initial sellout which Tixel believes is a good indicator of the pent up demand for live events.
Leigh added: “Events will often see around a third of tickets change hands so ensuring that these are clean and honest transactions is good for everybody – from the artist that doesn’t want fans to be price gouged, to the venue staff having to deal with fake or duplicate tickets at the door.
“This is in addition to the loss of bar and march revenue from no-shows, which can also be an issue if there’s no easy way to resell a ticket. Instead of feeling helpless, we want promoters to feel confident and informed about every single ticket, regardless of whether it has been bought and sold along the way.”
Image: William White on Unsplash
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